Project Based Learning, Service Learning, and Being Innovative with Terry Wetzel

What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher, and hosted the teaching champions podcast. And today I have a fantastic conversation for you. And it's one that I found to be extremely interesting. You know, my days are spent at the primary level with the five to nine year olds, and my guest today, he spent the majority of his career working at the high school level, and to hear about some of the great things that he did, and saw at this level was refreshing. And it was thought provoking as well. How many of us are quick to seek out advice from people that are directly in our own grade level or kata area, but rarely venture into the world of different grade levels, or different content areas. And sometimes, the best ideas can be sparked if we take that time to step back, and listen to those who are outside our specialty area. And as you're gonna hear, my guest discusses, there's an art and a science to teaching. And while things may be different, in many ways between grade levels, there's also a lot of crossover. And there's so much that we can learn from one another, if we just take that time to listen. And my guest today is Terry Wessel. He spent 28 years in education as a teacher, a technology director, and in various administration roles. And his experience is primarily at the high school level and includes oversight of a project based learning charter school. And in this conversation, we're going to explore flexible scheduling, project based learning, service learning, creating that curiosity in our students, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Terry Wetzel. I want to welcome Terry to teaching champions podcast Terry, welcome to the show. Thank you, Brian. And I'm really looking forward to this interview. Because I live in the world I teach second grade, I live in the world of primary, I know that you live up in high school worlds. So there's a lot of topics that I'm not as familiar with. So I'm looking to learn a lot from you. Can you give the audience a little of your background, Terry, you've got a just finishing a 28 year career in education. I'm a first generation college student, first generation college graduate, I should say. I, my undergraduate degree is not in education. It's in business management, finance, economics. And then I did a little soul searching as a young adult and decided I always wanted to be a teacher. So the path that I took was to get a master's degree in business education and get certified through that. I then started teaching at a small to medium sized town in Wisconsin. Then my career evolved, that I got pretty heavily into technology. And I accepted a job in a different school district as a technology director. I did that for a number of years, all while going back to get my administrative license. I then became the high school assistant principal in that same district. I then became for a brief stint the middle school principal. And then I moved to a different district as the high school principal, which was sort of a goal. And then as my career progressed, and my children got older, I became a director of instruction. And then I finally came full circle after some soul searching, and went back to being a teacher near near Green Bay, Wisconsin, as well as having some administrative duties at a charter school in a district near Green Bay. So I kind of ran the gamut. And all with the exception of those few years as middle school principal. I always was at the high school level and nearly always working with juniors and seniors. So axion, there's a lot there. And I think the listeners need to know that you have just recently retired from the field of education. So definitely want to say congratulations on that but you are Tell me a little bit earlier, that you're not necessarily stepping away from the workforce. Could you explain what the next chapter in your life is? Sure, I'm not quite ready to fully step away from the workforce. And I didn't leave education because I was, quote, unquote, burnt out either. I was not necessarily feeling that at the very end of my career, in education, which just ended, I just was ready to sort of try something else. And I mean, education is hard, it was, you know, tough, but I would not say that I was burnt out on things, or left in any way other than under, under my own circumstances. So I'm going to be working at an amazing company here in Green Bay, Wisconsin called fork farms. And they produce and sell hydroponic, agricultural growing units, called a flex farm, they're actually in many schools already. And they grow assorted plants, greens, primarily, in a very cost effective and near and dear to the earth sort of way. So I'm going to be one of their employees that is in charge of working with schools around the United States and putting these units in some schools and they're in quite a few schools already. So it's kind of exciting to me, because trying to live a healthy lifestyle isn't important to me, and trying to do that with with our students is also important to me. So. And I think this is fantastic. And I love this next step in your career, because as we were saying, earlier, my wife and I were both teachers, and at the elementary level, and on our way home from school, today, we were talking about what's being served in the cafeteria. And sometimes, you know, we often say the only good meal that the kids might get is the meal that they get at school. So what is what food is actually being served at school? And how can we get more vegetables on there? How can we get more higher quality proteins? I love that you're going into this field? Absolutely. I'm excited. It's an amazing company with some just really positive, forward thinking kind people. So I'm excited to to work for fork farms. Yeah, I think they have a big plays in the future schools. And you have a wide background from several different positions from teaching to being an assistant principal, high school principal. So you have a vast knowledge and being in all those different roles. When you look back, especially as you step away from the classroom, what do you think some of the biggest lessons that you've learned? Yeah, it is difficult to encapsulate, there's lots of lessons, some of them are very reflective from me. And I do I feel fortunate to have had that background that I have. And to some extent, it was because I, you know, in full disclosure, after 567 years in a specific role, I would just want change, and see how I could affect change, and students on a different level. But, you know, one of the biggest lessons at its core, I think, for teachers is to always see the good interest in students, you know, to just always see the good in them no matter what. Also to give your full effort every day, that's easy, easy to say. But you have to you have to walk that and live that. Now, not every day, or every lesson is going to go masterfully and that's okay. But you have to come every day with the a game. One of my sayings with my students was to be epic, not average. And you know, I had to try to live that too. You know, get involved in your school, be a leader have a voice. There's always going to be ups and downs, good days, tough days, you have to persevere. You know, and then this one also is said so much in education, but we can't lose sight of it that relationships are key, and forming great relationships with students, parents, colleagues, administrators, and the community at whole that that's key relationships are key. And you know, there are some amazing teachers out there as I've gotten to be a little more active and know some people on Twitter, it's allowed me to branch out and just step back and see some of these amazing teachers. And actually, I think, Brian, that's what sort of spurred this I made a simple tweet a number of months ago announcing that after 28 years in education, I was done. And I don't have a lot of followers. I had very few then but some some One, I don't want to use the word famous, but kind of a, an innovator saw that tweet and retweeted it. And it just it sort of fascinated with me, fascinated me. And, you know, 5000 some likes later, you know, I've made some great connections. So, you know, we're not so different from state to state to state. A student is a student, a young adult is a young adult, and we have to be there for them. So, yeah, there's so much great things that you said right there. I love how you opened up and you said, you got to see the good? No, absolutely, because how we view them is how we're going to treat them. And sometimes it could even be on the subconscious. But if all you do is see that student that's causing disruptions, or that you're not seeing eye to eye, and all you see as the negative, then you're going to treat them a different way. And you're always going to be looking at that. But if you can find that good. And you concentrate on that good, like, mentality wise, it's just going to help your mental state. Absolutely, that is so important. You said it very well. And I love how also you talked about be epic, not average, and that we can't just talk to talk, we got to walk the walk, and we can't expect them to always show up and put their best foot forward and not do it ourselves. Right? Absolutely. And not every and like you said, not every lesson is going to be perfect. Some days, you know, our 100% might not be the same every single day. But given what we have for that day. Absolutely. And I also really, you brought up a good point, get involved in your school, but Surround yourself with positive people, people that they can you can draw their energy off of, and it just doesn't have to be within your school, you talked about the connections that you've made online. And it's so true. There's so many great educators, especially I think, on Twitter, that you can get inspired by. And they're just like good connections, I've learned so many great ideas, because there's people out there that are absolutely crushing it and they're willing to share. They are yes, so many teachers willing to share it and cheer each other on. And like you said state to state, it's not that different. No other it's great to stay. And I've actually which really unbelievable to me about the power of social media, I've made connections with some amazing people in Bahrain, some people in England and Spain. So our worlds just with technology and the way it is so small. Agreed. Awesome. Now, we talked about some things that were near and dear to your heart, in being inside the classroom, what you've seen as an administrator as well. And one of them that you talked about was flexible scheduling. So what exactly is flexible scheduling? And how have you seen that be successful at your school? You bet that that is something you know, and I think we we have to start exploring this, at least at the high school level, for sure. And even to some extent, at the middle and elementary levels, it's a little harder there. But you know, I don't always think that we've been as innovative as we, we can be in education, we, we do some things, but we have to admit that we could be a lot more innovative than we are for whatever reason, and that's not pointing fingers anywhere. It's just saying we have to be more flexible. So I'm just going to, you know, say shoot out some things and I don't always have the answers as to how we do these. I have some ideas. But just simple things like later start and end times for some students, perhaps partial online partial in person. You know, we learned a lot of lessons from COVID Small group classes, large group classes block scheduling, the ability for students to take more classes. I'm very interested in a concept that I would call like mini courses, where it's simply creating exposure to topics. Maybe they're only for a few weeks, but it creates exposure to different topics and thus creates some curiosity for students so that they can take things farther. So you know, it is difficult to flex a schedule, particularly at at lower grade levels. But we've got to we've got to start having these discussions and being more innovative. Every study altar says that for sure High School Students don't learn well at eight in the morning. But on the other hand in my experiences, there are a handful of students that would love to start earlier than the normal school day for whatever reason. So we've got to start being more flexible with our schedules. Now. I also have had some incredible, incredibly fortunate experiences as a coach in my career I've been in my education career, I've been a track and cross country coach. And I have had some amazing young adults and experiences, from state champions to division one athletes, to one young man ended up at the Olympic trials. So I am an advocate, I'm an advocate of High School Sports. But we cannot allow sports to dictate our school schedule, we need to somehow mesh these things or marry these things. And I don't know what that looks like. Because again, I am an advocate of the experiences that students get in sports and all co curricular activities. But to some extent, that drives schedules at the high school level. And I think we have to start getting some some people around the table, from parents, to coaches, to teachers, to admin community members, to start having some of those discussions that would lend the ability to be more flexible, while still offering some of these amazing experiences that our CO curriculars provide. Absolutely, and I love a lot what you said there and COVID did provide a ton of lessons sometimes, you know, we were so quick to get back into the classroom, that sometimes we disregarded, in some ways, all of the lessons that we could take from that that, you know, all over the country, people handled COVID differently. Last year, I was 100% and remote. And so my district, we had one for each grade level, one teacher was 100% remote, the rest of the district was hybrid. So it was a little bit different. But coming back to that table, and maybe the summertime is the best time to do it. Come to the table. What were some good things that we learned from that year, where a lot of us were online, because like you said, the world changing technology is changing the game. And sometimes we have to step outside of that comfort zone. We're comfortable with set schedules, we're comfortable with the way that it's always done, sometimes, to drive innovation, we got to step outside that box. And we really do. And like you said, with the mini courses, exposing these young men, these young women to many different topics mean different career paths to try and spark that curiosity. That I think that those are all great ideas. And it's coming to the table, discussing them. And really, how can we learn from all of these? You bet. Now, you also talked about that you were big into project based learning what were some of the ways inside your own classroom and at your school that you saw that being implemented? So one of my roles at a district I worked in recently, I was a teacher, but I also had administrative duties for a project based charter school within our district. So project based learning, there's all sorts of textbook definitions of that. But at its core, students need to actively engage in kind of a real world and personally meaningful project. And it has structure to it, it doesn't mean they're just off doing anything. They're solving a problem. After they pose a question. They could bring in experts, but they do this in a in an exploratory manner. And there really should be some sort of a presentation. Conclusions. I think, at the end, a public expert, you know, we would have parents and others come in as students would present their project. So I think that this allows that element of curiosity that I think is more important than ever in education. But it's, you know, a personally meaningful project that they would propose to the teacher, and there's so many good resources out there. One of them is called PBL works. And then they they move along and have sort of, you know, steps in this sequence in which they're exploring this, trying to answer a question or solve something so they can meet assorted standards. By doing this, and when they sit down with the teacher to propose this, that's one of the things they do well, this might meet social studies standards, X, Y, and Z. This may meet science standards, you know, A, B, and C. So project based learning, you know, it's pretty broad, but there's an element of exploration. There's an element of authenticity, real world personally meaningful projects to a student. And then I would like to see some sort of connection with experts. Also, we had one student that was meeting virtually, on a very regular basis with a, a nationally known expert from UW Madison, right here in our state. And it had to do with some GIS type things. So the student learns so much from this person. So that's what project based learning is. And even if you're not in a project based school, I mean, if you're in a traditional school, you can still have elements of project based learning, you could have a very broad topic within the students, by their own choice can go down different paths of this in order to meet the standards, we all know that students are most engaged when they have at least a little element of choice and some of the things that they do. So there's a lot of charter schools in Wisconsin, at least that sort of are under this project based learning umbrella. Now, how much guidance when a student is doing the project? How much guidance do you have to give them along the way? That's a great question, Brian, I think some of that varies by the student by the age of the student, the project based school that I was the administrator for was a 612. School. So you know, you might need more guidance with a younger student than an older, possibly. But there should be, it should be very clear at the onset of what this project looks like. So So sometimes there's guidance, sometimes that guidance is in the form of motivation, if the student is lagging a bit, but you know, and the project can evolve as it as it moves along, the teacher, or mentor may be saying, well, what about this? Or did you ever think this? And so forth? So yes, there's always some guidance along the way. Excellent. I really liked how you also said that you were pushing them, to find experts and to reach out to other people. I know as an adult, and I think we start maybe falling short, sometimes, of really reaching out and looking for those experts. One thing is in the changed my life, I guess you surround yourself with people that push you forward and that you learn from was a guy that I used to coach basketball with, and he absolutely loved basketball. And he would send out letters and questions to division one coaches in the offseason, all the time. And some of them, you know, they were just too busy and couldn't get back. But I was surprised about how many would get back to him and offer film, suggestions, being willing to meet on the phone, that there's experts out there. And it's not just for the students, it's for us that to reach out and learn from, and that's go ahead. I'm sorry, I absolutely agree. And it's, I love it that you said that, because that's been one of my philosophies, I will send out an email to people. And as you said, I think more people are willing to speak than you'd realize or to, you know, do a zoom call with a classroom or something, we just have to reach out and do that and get past any sort of reluctance to hit send on that email. And that so that is when you require those students to do that planting that seed in an early age of the power of reaching out, which is great. Now and what are some of the other projects that you saw out there? What were some of the students bringing for their presentations? Oh, gosh, it's so many. You know, from technology type things to psychology type inquiry. There was a young lady I recall it did this amazing project of about different dog breeds and similarities and differences. And was it really the breed of the dog or how the dog was sort of trained and integrated into a home entrepreneurship type projects? You know, the future of coding and technology? Oh, gosh, everything imaginable. Young man that did some real neat things with rebuilding small engines and he had some thoughts and theories that there were some ways we could redesign some of these small engines he he got with a number of eggs spurts and, you know, all over the place with these different projects of interests. So and would you notice with those students that might not be engaged in the traditional setting? Was there a difference when they were in this project based learning setting? Totally. And that's the word right there. The engagement was so much more sincere and substantial. When that when it was something that they came up with the toughest parts for many students is coming up with the idea. And that's where the teacher has to be kind of the I don't know, what's the buzz phrase of a few years ago? The the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage or something? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it sounds like a great thing, especially like sparking that engagement, sparking that curiosity, making them have ownership and choice. Definitely something to look into. Now, you also talked about service learning. So what is service learning? And how have you done that in your schools as well? Sure. I think that, you know, one of the, one of the neat things that sounds so small, but I always had this tradition in my classes, called thankful Thursday. And I think I started this about the time, at least at the high school level that phones students had to the masses of students having phones started to be kind of an issue in the classroom. And I wanted to just leverage these things in somehow, somehow, instead of, you know, fighting that uphill battle. And I started something called thankful Thursdays. And I still have students that reach out to me, students that graduated 10 years ago, happy thankful Thursday, Mr. Watson. And if there's something that will get me choked up, if something like that a former student, but it has to do with gratitude, and just reaching out and thanking someone that's helped you on your way. So relative to service learning, I feel it's part of educating the whole the whole child. And that, you know, it's doing some greater good in the community, whatever the community is your school, your neighborhood, something, but it's not just, let's pick up trash for two hours, on Saturday morning, there's nothing wrong with that much good can come from that in the way of discussions and, and other things. But true service learning is more in depth projects that serve and improve community. Now, there should be some front loading from the teacher, there should be some level of assessment, and some kind of reflection built in. So again, there's nothing wrong with raking leaves or picking up trash on a Saturday morning, with a club, perhaps, I used to do that with my cross country teams, we do a couple Saturdays a season where we do something small, but true service learning should have, as I said, some element of front loading from an instructor, some level of assessment, and then some reflection on the students part, whatever that may look like. So, you know, I think that can be done at elementary, middle high school levels, and that the teacher just has to sort of adapt it. I think it should, the pace of it should be very reflective in nature, it could be an ongoing project through the year, it shouldn't be rushed. I mean, there's no, you know, test at the end in which you have to then move on to the next segment of the curriculum, I think the the true value in service learning is obviously not only what you're doing, you're creating, but it's the reflection from the students. And I think we think we build better adults when we when we do that. So yeah, I absolutely love how you emphasize that reflection piece. Because it's not just going out there and helping in the community, but then taking that time, and really thinking about your actions. And, you know, ingraining, that in their subconscious understanding the effect and the impact that they can have and making our schools and our communities like that stronger bond. You bet. What ways have you found mentoring new teachers to be successful? Sure. So I think, you know, one of my philosophies about teaching is that, you know, there's an art and a science, and I believe that the art is 51% of, of teaching success. And those are the hard parts to kind of impart to a new teacher. So the the art part are things like how you carry yourself, relationships with students, thinking on your feet, how to handle situations. means reading your audience projecting a calm confidence. So that's the art of teaching the science is a little easier to impart to a mentor, a new teacher, because it's a little more objective. It's, it's teaching the content, it's less than structure, grading practices, which could be a whole nother podcast, and so forth, and things like that those are important, but certainly more objective in nature. So mentoring new teachers, I think you have to focus both on that art and science of teaching, but a little more emphasis on the art of teaching. And again, it's a little harder to impart those lessons. But But I can think of an example here that, you know, I've had new teachers or sometimes even veteran teachers, say something like this, you got to come down hard on those kids right away in those early days, because you can always back off. And I do not agree with that whatsoever. What you create, if you come down right away you inordinately about rules and thinks you create a little bit of space between these students. And you because let's face it, some students are thinking, wow, this person's over the top, or they may even be thinking this person's a jerk, or something like that. Now there's nothing. And here's a newsflash, kids know the rules of school. And every level, they know the rules. Now, if you want to talk about procedures, that's different. Don't do that on the first day, you got, I don't know what other states are, like we have over 180 days in Wisconsin, we're with students, you'll have time to get to that stuff. So I tell new teachers, I try and get them to understand that part. And, you know, you can't inundate them with rules. In those early days or weeks, you got to you got to start by nurturing those relationships. And there's nothing wrong with fun. And you can still guide things and you can still be in charge. But that's how you start getting to that art of teaching in the way you conduct yourself. I did have a student one time, I remember, say, You are the only teacher that greets all of us by name every day. And I know that there are lots of teachers that do that. And you know, but I got thinking about that. And it's something I've always done every day, every hour, each student gets greeted by name. Now, we should do that that's the human element. And we decrease any possible discipline problems or things like that, you know, on students, the vast majority of students do want to, quote unquote, please us as teachers, they want to do well by us. And, you know, we have to do well by them to, you know, that's what creates meaningful learning, and moving students along on a continuum. So that's what I try and stress to new teachers, is those relationship elements. There is a fine line with that. But it can't be done. So 100%. And, you know, those students getting that that one moment, at least the bare minimum, where you take that time to recognize them and let them know, because that might be the only time that someone takes a moment says, How are you doing today? You know, I see you, I hear you, you know, I believe in you, right there. That's powerful. And like you said, there is an art and a science and one thing, I'm still learning. In my first few years, I started out teaching kindergarten, and I had no idea and it was a rough, I had a ton of passion. But there was a huge learning curve for me. And I think those mentoring programs, having those mentors in place that can really teach you about that art of teaching is huge. And maybe even being able to step inside their classrooms and seeing how they handle the, you know, different situations, how they set up the procedures within the classroom is huge. You bet. I know that you also are a very well read individual, and I'm big into reading as well. And with summer here. Now I got two weeks left to school, but I know most states already are on summer vacation. What are a couple books that you would recommend for people that want to have a few books to enlighten themselves over this summer? Oh, sure. I am a voracious reader, I might read a little differently than than other people. Sometimes I have four or five books going at the same time. I don't read a lot of fiction. But I'm going to start with a fiction book that has nothing to do with education. I just thought it was unbelievably well written, perhaps some people have, you know, already read the book, it was called the overstory. And it tells this tells some unique stories through the life of trees, humans stories using trees, as sort of sort of a, a point in it. So it's called the overstory. The author is escaping me right now. But that's a fiction one, some nonfiction books that I've read recently, or that I that I am reading right now. I'm reading one called fully connected by Julia Hobbs bomb, she is someone I've actually taken a chance and reached out to on social media. And fully connected is about ways we can keep social media in our lives without it sort of taking over. So even though it's called fully connected, it's about using social media wiser, that it's not this bad thing that we can leverage it in our lives for a lot of ways. A book I read a number of years ago, I guess I call it a little bit of sort of about prioritizing, and that's oversimplifying, it's by Greg McEwan. It's called essentialism. And I think it's a really good book about knowing how to prioritize things in our in our life. And he I know he has a follow up to it, I can't recall the follow up title, I've reached out to him also. And I got a response from him a couple of years ago, in a similar book, on that same sort of prioritizing kind of topic is called the one thing it's called The One Thing, and it's by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. And that's a great book all sold. But I'm always thumbing through different things. I try to read some outdoor books just because some of my area of interest. My my partner slash wife, Monica, reads a lot of historical fiction, and she reads one book at a time. So we, we kind of do things a little differently in our house, relative to reading, so and it is tough sometimes to find time to do that. And there's nothing wrong with reading something outside of the education realm, just to rejuvenate us a little bit. Absolutely not. I'm a big reader, too, I guess I've gone because like you said, timewise, it's sometimes it's hard, you got to be deliberate and cutting out that space. So I do a lot of audible, Amazon, audible and listen a lot in the car, or while I'm doing some chores. And I read essentialism, definitely a good book. And I've heard a ton of people talk about the one thing and really recommend that as well. So that's definitely on my list to get to, as well. And like you said, we can read things outside of the education field, sometimes the best ideas can come from looking outside educational field, or you just need to shut it down. You know, step away from the space for a little bit. And like you said, how you read about nature, things that interest you and everything? Absolutely. Excellent. Now, Terry, if people wanted to connect with you, what is the best way that they can connect? They could connect with me on Twitter or but just using my personal email, which is my first initial t, then my last name, what's old wet ze L? So T Watson one@gmail.com. Excellent. I was just, we were having this conversation earlier there on your Twitter feed, you come out with some random so it's a bunch of different ideas. Just in one Twitter thread. I read them and I really enjoyed it. So I would definitely recommend that everybody connect with you. And that it just brings makes you think a little bit like yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's just become kind of a fun thing with me that, and I don't do it every week, but I'll have perhaps five random thoughts on a given day. So yeah, it's been fun. I've gotten some interesting feedback from that. And my Twitter handle is, you know, at And then Terry t er y underscore what sold my last name WETZ. So awesome. Now, if you could have the listeners walk away with one thing from this episode. What would that be? Cash dinero. It's one thing relative to education. We really have to while still serving students step back and say, can we innovate more? Can we do more is our current system, serving students to the best of our ability. And that's not an indictment of the current system or staff. It's just something that has to be done, we really have to reach higher in how we educate students and innovate. So that would be one thing as I as I leave this profession, to how can we innovate? How can we do things differently and better as we move forward. So, Terry, thank you for being on. And you know, most importantly, thank you, for the students that you served over those 28 years in the various positions it makes, sometimes, I think we forget the impact that we make that, you know, all those things, like you said, thankful Thursday, they you still have those former students reaching out and saying, you know, happy thankful Thursday, or thank you for what you did, taking that time to recognize all those students in your classroom every single day. Those are our little gifts, and they stay with the kids. And you're still we talked about your next career move, and how important that is, you know, getting that fresh food, that healthy food into the schools. Thank you so much for being here, for giving us sharing your wisdom today. And for the blessings that you've given to all those that you've served. With. Thanks, Brian, I really appreciate it, keep doing what you're doing, too. Thank you, I appreciate it there. You bet. I love these conversations. And it's always so interesting to hear what others are doing at the high school level. Now, this is a teaching champions take where I talk about three of the gems that I took away from this conversation. And the first gem is one that I hold close to my heart. And it's when Terry talked about seeing the good in the students really focusing on the great things that the students bring to the table. Because if you see the good in your students, you're going to find the good in them. If you focus on that negative, that's all you're going to see. And you're going to find that, and that's going to play a huge role in how you treat your champions. Along with seeing the good, I loved how Terry said that he made it a point to greet each student by their name every single day. Carving that time out to let your students know, I see you and I care about you is huge and building up those relationships. The second gen that I really enjoyed was how Terry broke down project based learning and the impact that it has on students creating that curiosity, building up that engagement, especially with those reluctant learners. And I absolutely loved how we saw the importance in pushing students to connect with an expert, showing the students the value in reaching out to people who are above us in certain areas, it's pivotal to their growth. And if we can plant that seed in our students heads early on, then it's going to make it easier for them to do as adults. There's so much for us to learn from this as well. Often for a wide variety of reasons. We stopped ourselves from reaching out to those above us to those who could provide some real insight into different areas. And we hesitate and we don't reach out. And I think Terry's a great example of this, as he talked about in the interview, how he's reached out to multiple authors, and several of them got back to him. I talked about how the basketball coach that I worked with, he used to reach out to division one coaches all the time, and they used to get back to a lot of people are willing to help and pass along knowledge if we're willing to take that first step and reach out. And the third gem was when Terry talked about the power of service learning, he discussed the benefit of having the students do something within the community. And the one thing that he stressed was the importance of reflection, and the power that it has, how it can make such a deeper connection to the students. And they take that time to think about what they did. And these were just three of them many great takeaways from this conversation. Remember to connect with Terry on social media. I'll leave his information in the show notes. What were some of your favorite takeaways, connect with me on social media and let me know Thank you for being here for being part of the teaching champions community, we support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think someone would benefit from this message, please pass it along. And always remember, it doesn't matter whether we're from rural America to urban America, to Canada, to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we'll always better together. Keep being amazing, my friends, and as we go out into the week, May you step into your strength, may you step into your shine, and let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody